


you're gonna need a lot of love

by bigbarda



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, F/F, F/M, Found Family, Gen, Music, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-07 05:14:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18613867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigbarda/pseuds/bigbarda
Summary: Alison Blaire doesn't want to be alone any more.





	you're gonna need a lot of love

**Author's Note:**

> All of the section headings are a playlist. You can listen to it here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2A11pPv645xqCJzMtlvXcm
> 
> content warnings: canon character death, alcohol and one reference to recreational drug use, brief violence, discussions of Alison's kidnapping, replacement by Mystique, and time spent as an unwilling source of MGH.

YOU'RE GONNA NEED A LOT OF LOVE,

BUT NOT THE KIND YOU'RE THINKING OF.

"Hey, Space Cadet (Beast Monster Thing In Space)," Car Seat Headrest

* * *

 

i. HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT, _Alison, in the arena_

 

Alison lives on the roar of the crowd, survives on it as she transmutes it; turning sound into light, anticipation into magic. She dazzles.

Everybody loves her, and she never loses a fight.

Every night, every mouth in the crowd is screaming her name; she’s the best and the brightest of the Gladiators, and no one ever forgets it. Dazzler in every shout, but it’s been six months since anyone has called her Alison, and she’s starting to forget how it felt to be Ali. She feels like the most popular girl in the world, like she’s everyone’s hero and idol and inspiration, but when the lights go down, she’s all alone.

One of these days, the shine’s gonna come off all this, and where’s she gonna be then?

 

* * *

 

ii. SISTERS ARE DOING IT FOR THEMSELVES, _Alison and Lois_

 

She’s never had a sister before, and now, suddenly, she does. There are infinitely more people in the world than she could ever imagine, but she feels like she should have known Lois was out there. That some bond sisters share should have shown her where to look. If she and Lois don’t already have a connection, Alison doesn’t even know where to begin.

Being a sister must be easier than being a hero, but so far it feels the same. She’s barely known Lois a week and already she’s rescued her three times: from a fire, from her personal enemies, from Lois’s own mutation.

“Don’t you worry ‘bout a thing, sweetheart,” Alison soothes, packing Lois into the passenger seat of her car. It doesn’t pay to have a car in New York City, but at her heart, Alison grew up a suburban girl. She knows how to run away. “I’m gonna get you far away from all this trouble.”

Lois is just a kid, still a college girl, and the mother they shared and Lois’s father were hardly pillars of support. She’s not alone anymore, though. She’s got Alison, now.

Lois doesn’t stop crying until they reach New Jersey. Alison pulls into the lot of an Arco, out of gas and short on patience. She hands Lois a few loose bills. “Lois, sweetie, can you run in and grab me a sparkling water while I get gas? Get yourself whatever you want.”

Lois looks terrified. “What if I……..?”

“Don’t take off the gloves, kiddo,” Alison soothes. “You’re gonna be okay.”

 

Lois is only twenty, but she’d killed a man, and that’s never going to go away. Girls like Lois are why people fear mutants. Ali feels awful even thinking it, but it’s true. She doesn’t know if the help Lois needs is help that Ali is strong enough to give.

“I killed him,” Lois finally says. She’s been silent since they left the gas station behind them, eighteen miles back on I-80. She’s got both hands tight around her ginger ale, death grip for the girl with the killer touch.

“Yeah,” Alison agrees. What else can she do? “You did. But you didn’t mean to. That matters, Lois.” 

“I wish I was normal,” Lois starts crying again. 

“Oh, sweetheart,” Alison leaves one hand on the wheel, but pulls Lois close with the other, leaning together over the gearshift as Lois sobs into her shoulder. When she’d been a girl in her father’s quiet house, Alison had dreamed of having a younger sister, of having an ally, a friend, a sister-in-arms. She’d imagined it would be easy and warm and loving, but ever since she met Lois, ever since she learned her mother had kept an eye on her in secret and never tried to meet her, it’s felt like her heart won’t stop breaking.

She’d met her mother, Katherine, a stranger who called herself Barbara London, now. For that one night backstage at Carnegie Hall, after the greatest performance of her life, they’d all been a family again, her mother, her father and her, before her mother walked away again.  She’d said it wasn’t forever, that she just needed to take it slow. It feels like her own mother looked at her and found her wanting, but Alison won’t give herself time to hurt until she gets Lois to California. “Everything is gonna be okay, kiddo, you’ll see. It’ll all be different in Los Angeles.”

She keeps saying it and saying it as they drive cross-country. Like if she says it enough, if she believes it enough, she can make it true.

 

 

 

Alison loves Los Angeles, loves the sun and the crowds and the constant noise. She can feel the city under her skin, she can feel her heart race like something unchained. The showbusiness she’s not so sure about all the time. The music she’s never doubted, she was born to it, but the sleaze and back hallways and handshakes under the table in Hollywood are leaving her cold.

It doesn’t matter, she’s too bright a star for any of these men to drag her down. In California, Alison decides, she and Lois are going to be happy, it’ll be like they’ve never been acquainted with worry. She can see the mountains from her bedroom window, and in Santa Monica, it smells every day like the sea.

 

 

 

She’s not enough for Lois. She wishes she were.

Lois still cries herself to sleep, still tells Alison she hates being a mutant, that she hates herself for what she’s done. Alison doesn’t know how to help, so she does the only thing she thinks she can.

She’s on stage in front of the roar of jet turbines with what feels like the whole world watching, Dazzler in the spotlight, like she’s always wanted. She’s a star, she’s a legend, she’s Alison Blaire and she’s the goddamned Dazzler. And she’s a mutant. So she stops hiding.

It takes a week before her shows start being cancelled, four days before she realizes her Hollywood friends have blocked her phone number, and two days before Lois walks away from her for good. 

“We don’t have anything to be proud of,” Lois snarls, when she shuts Ali’s door behind her. “We’re just mutant freaks.”

Hollywood’s brightest rising star is a mutant pariah in a week’s time; contracts shredded, movie deal shelved, tour finished. And Alison is all alone, again.

 

* * *

 

iii. IN ANOTHER PLACE AND TIME, _Alison and Betsy and Longshot_

 

It’s 1989 and the Berlin Wall is about to fall; Alison Blaire is a twenty seven year old dead woman, and she’s gonna live forever. The future feels impossibly huge, wider than the whole Australian outback, which already feels like a whole world. But that doesn’t matter: Ali’s already seen the future she wants within her mind’s eye, and it’s all coming up Dazzler.

She’s gonna save the world and she’s gonna be a star. What’s so hard about that?

 

 

 

Leaning over her shoulder, Longshot asks for the third time where they’re going, but he doesn’t sound like he really cares. He always seems happy enough to follow her lead. Longshot runs warm, with him draped along her back it feels like leaning against the oven door. Like the day he’d told her he had hollow bones, and she’d given him a piggyback ride all around the compound just because she could, laughing together until Wolverine told them to quiet down. 

“But, Longshot, sweetie, if I tell you, then where’s the surprise?” 

“Oh, yeah!” he laughs, “you’re right about that, Ali!” 

She’s done a few of these gigs before, but this is the first time the audience has mattered. She feels like she’s alive again when she’s on stage, every eye in the room watching her shine. These days, it’s not about the attention she gets, it’s about what she gives in return. Alison wasn’t made to be a superhero, she was made to be a star; what good is it to save people’s lives, if you don’t give them something to live for as well?

Ali brings Longshot through the door of an outback dive, a roadside affair coated in dust, reeking of beer and sweat and dark inside. Not really her scene, but there’s a karaoke stage and a sound system, and she’s good enough to make do with less. “Some place!” Longshot exclaims, but he’s so genuine about it that Alison knows he’s not poking fun. “I’ve never seen anywhere like this, Ali! Wow!”

“It’s not much,” she laughs. “Plenty of bars like this one, all over the world.” 

“Wow,” Longshot says, again. Sometimes he looks at Alison like he’s never seen anything better, endless fascination in the tilt of his head and the crease of his brow. It’s like the world is a constant adventure for Longshot, and Ali is the greatest mystery he’s found yet. On a team with the greatest heroes the world has ever known, Longshot makes Alison feel seen. “You’re so worldly, Ali. Thanks for bringing me here!” 

She lays a kiss on his mouth and gives her brightest Dazzler grin. “You haven’t seen anything yet, sweetheart.”

 

 

 

Betsy’s so tightly wound, so buttoned up. Alison wants see what she’s like, under the collars and pearls.

“Come on, Betsy,” she coaxes, “don’t you want to show me what you can do without powers?” She’s itching for a good fight, but only if its Betsy in the ring with her. They all train as a team, keeping sharp in a world of constant danger, but it’s always about how they use their powers, and it always feels safe. Alison wants to fight with her hands. She wants to feel like she could lose. 

“Very well,” Betsy sniffs, tugging off her outer cloak and folding it neatly. Ali whoops, and crumples her jacket up like a beachball to toss at the wall. 

For all her upper crust affectations, Betsy is scrappy. She fights mean and smart and violent. Alison is pinned before she realizes they’ve begun. 

“No fair,” she whines. Betsy lets her up, giving her a hand up and squeezing tight. “You gotta be, like,” she pauses, searching for the right word, “sporting! Geeze, Betsy!” 

“I thought you wanted a real fight?” Betsy smiles.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah! I just want to stand a real chance.”

Betsy finally lets go of her hand, and Ali dusts herself off, feeling second rate. Betsy’s a telepath, and even she’s got Ali beat on hand to hand. Betsy looks her up and down, and when she’s satisfied that Alison seems suitably focused, smiles. Betsy’s got such a sweet smile, but there’s something sneaky beneath the kindness. She wants to know all about the tricks Betsy likes to play. 

“Let’s go again, then, Lightengale,” Betsy beckons, and lets Alison make the first move. She throws a lucky shoulder, ducking under Betsy’s punch to barrel her down like a linebacker, rolling like a gymnast to hit the floor and tumble out a winner.

Maybe Betsy let her win this time, but it doesn’t feel like it, now that she’s on top. Looking down at Betsy with her knees bracketing the other woman’s hips, Ali feels like she’s still winning. She’s got Betsy’s wrists in both hands, holding her steady to the mat. Every inhale smells like Betsy’s breath, like bergamot and lemon.

Alison has thought about women like this before, but she’s never felt immediacy like she does now, like if she doesn’t lean down another few inches and kiss Betsy right this moment, she’ll be losing something forever. Like there’s no second chances. 

She backs up. Not every door is one that needs to be opened, not every chance should be taken. Alison remembers how it had felt finding Longshot letting Rogue play around with him in Alison’s clothes, and he hadn’t even understood how he could be hurting her. She’d know exactly what she was doing if she did this, and she’s not going to be that girl. Not to Longshot. Not to Betsy. 

“I need to shower,” Alison blurts out. She’s flushing, cheeks pink with embarrassment and want, rather than exertion “Now.”

“Of course,” Betsy nods, gracious. Her hands freed, she sits up, rubbing at her right wrist. Ali had barely even squeezed, but it’s like she can feel the heat of Betsy’s skin on her fingerprints, still. “Another time, maybe.”

“Sure,” Alison scrambles out of the gym. “Another time.”

 

 

 

Longshot’s leaving.

“Just like that?” Alison asks. He’d found her in the monitors room, watching music videos and muted news channels on a cluster of screens. This was the last thing she’d expected when she’d looked up to find him watching her from the doorway. 

“I’m going to miss you terribly, Ali. More than anyone.” Longshot eyes are getting wet and pink, he’ll cry before the conversation is through. Ali crosses her arms, shoring herself up. It’s not fair for him to put his sorrow on her lap, when he’s the one leaving her behind. She doesn’t want him to know that it hurts, won’t be vulnerable in front of someone else who’s trying to leave her in the dust. 

“Then why go? What do you have to do so bad that you can’t do it here?” 

“When I look at the news, or the world outside of here, I don’t understand any of it.” Longshot finally leaves the doorway to sit down on the floor in front of her, legs crossed beneath him. They’re nearly the same size, but on the ground before her, Longshot looks small. “Everything is still so strange to me, Ali, I’m always so confused. I think I need to see it for myself, if I’m ever going to figure out how to live in this crazy world of yours. I came here alone, and I think I have to do this on my own, too.” 

Alison hardens her heart. She gets it, God knows she’s run off enough times trying to find herself in the world, so she can’t hold it against Longshot. But it’s still a snakebite in the heart, one more rejection, one more person leaving her behind. “I understand. If you have to go, you have to go. It’s a big world to see.” 

“I love you, Alison,” Longshot reaches up to fold her hands in his own. “No matter where I go, that’ll stay true. You have my word, as a Cadre warrior.” 

Alison lets go of one of his hands to cup his cheek and looks down at him; Longshot sits at her feet, smiling up at her beatifically. A stray tear leaks onto her fingers, and Ali wipes the rest away. “Oh, sweetheart. You only have to be sad if you think you’ll never come back again.” 

“I’ll come back, Ali,” Longshot smiles, watery. “I’ll always come back for you.” 

He’s gone in the morning. In the absence, ‘I’ll come back’ doesn’t feel any kinder than ‘goodbye.’

 

 

She’s looked through this door once before, wide eyes on a constellation of Alisons who weren’t. Everyone always tells you to be your best self, but how does she know she didn’t leave behind a better self, somewhere along the way? She could have been a lawyer, a mother, a star. In every life the Siege Perilous showed her, in each of the possibilities of lives she could have led that she saw inside of it, she died young. Reavers at her front and a portal to recreation at her back, it’s easy to think she might still find time to die young in this life, too.

“There’s no need to be scared, Ali. You’ll be fine,” Betsy says. Alison is face to face with the portal behind Betsy, and Betsy isn’t asking anymore. 

If Alison does this thing, she’s going to obliterate everything that makes her Alison Blaire. She is going to be reduced to her barest bones and judged, and all she can do is pray that she won’t be found wanting. If she walks through that door, she’s giving up everything that makes her a superhero and a superstar, she’s losing memories of singing with Longshot and laughing with Betsy, of a distant, lukewarm childhood, and her grandmother’s steady love. She’ll lose the feeling of singing to a sold out crowd in Carnegie Hall and she’ll never remember how it felt to save the world. 

She has so much to lose. She isn’t ready to die. 

She steps through anyways.

 

* * *

 

iv. IT’S MY TURN, _Alison and Lila_

 

Alison wakes up on the beach, delivered directly to Lila and Guido. They’re old friends, people she trusts. Lila would never turn her back on an old friend, unless the money was good enough, so she offers up her home to Alison, lets her stay in the spare room until she’s got her wits about her again. 

“I’m making a comeback,” Ali tells her over dinner. Lila’s dating some international chef now, which means dinner is the best food she’s had all year. After a year of Wolverine’s best grilling in the outback, it had been a long, long time since Alison has indulged in good food and drink. “Call it my resurrection tour.” 

“Well, you’ve already tackled the hard part of resurrection, haven’t you? Short of raising your corpse all over again, the rest I can help with, though.” 

Alison doesn’t want to talk about what went down in Australia, and, besides, it’s not like Lila doesn’t know what it’s like. She’d been in trenches of her own. Instead, she asks about Lila’s latest heists, and sits back to listen to stories that make her own seem small.

What she had needed, she thinks now, was some perspective. 

“You sure this is what you want, love? Giving up all the adventures for good?” 

“I don't know if it’s for good. But for now, I’ve done my time,” Alison says. “I need a break from all the dying and near-death experiences. And I miss the music more than I’ll miss any of this.” 

That should be enough, but Alison’s worried it’s a lie. After the past three years, all she wants is her life and career back. But when it gets quiet in between shows, will she be left feeling like something’s missing? 

Lila piles her emptied plate high again, teases out a promise that Alison will stay at least a week, and then pulls out her guitar, a box of matches, and a bag of weed. “Dead girls still know how to roll?” Lila asks, listening with one ear as she tunes. 

“I was barely ever dead,” Alison dismisses. She gets to work.

 

 

 

She calls her mother the next morning from a pay phone near Lila’s London flat, three days after she’d passed through the Siege Perilous. It has been so long since the world watched the X-Men die, and she’s been presumed dead for so long. She’s not in the business of feeling like she owes her mother anything-even after they’d made amends, it was easier to keep Katherine at arm’s length-but she can find it in her heart to offer her the courtesy of telling her mother that she’s actually alive and in the flesh, before she goes public.

If that’s even what she wants to do. She’d told Lila it was, had made big noises about her big plans, but underneath the bluster she’s not as sure. All she’s ever wanted was to be a star, all she’s ever known is how to entertain, but she feels bigger than that now. She was a hero, a revolutionary, an X-Man. She’s saved the world, but why does she have to do it again? Isn’t it her turn to live, after all the sacrifice? Alison doesn’t know what she wants, any more. She just wants to be happy, but she can scarcely imagine what that would even look like.

“Barbara London,” her mother answers the phone, still living a life that had never had room for Alison. “May I ask who’s calling?”

Alison doesn’t know what to say. What is there to even say between them, besides? “Sorry,” she panics. “Wrong number.” 

Katherine sounds muddled, disbelieving. She gasps, like she’d heard a ghost on the line. “Alison?” 

She slams the phone down. Back to the greyish glass of the phone booth, Alison crumples against the wall, gasping like she’s beat her personal best mile time. Maybe another day, she’ll be ready. 

She wishes she could be calling her grandmother instead, or her father, but they’ve both been gone for years now. Even with all the heartbreak he’d caused her, her father had never hurt like Katherine’s absence had, and before he’d died, he’d been the one asking her forgiveness for turning his back. When she finishes the first song on the new album, she’ll try to call again, see if she can force herself to tell her mother that she’s alive.  She’ll be closer to ready, then, when she’s started ripping everything heavy out of her heart and turning it all into music. When she has a place to put her hurt. 

Until then, her mother had made it clear that she was just fine without Alison years ago when she walked out to start a new family, it’s not like a few more weeks believing her dead are going to kill Katherine. Alison doesn’t owe her anything, but in the sad, scared part of her she’s been trying to kill since she was twenty-two years old, she misses her mom and dad. 

Soon, she promises again, and leaves the phone booth.

  

* * *

 

v. LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD, _Alison and the Cadre Alliance_

 

She must be homesick, seeing familiar faces among the alien Cadre around her. It’s funny, because what does she have to be homesick for? An absent mother, a dearly departed father? The X-Men were a better family than her own, but she never thinks of them in the crowds, not even Betsy, not even Warren or Hank. Instead, she sees a woman with Grandma Bella’s button nose, a guard at the door with Lois’s mouth and jaw, a warrior who looks so much like Alison herself that Ali’s breath catches in her throat until she sees the green eyes and an entirely different nose. 

Longshot tells her that all of the Cadre come from the same place he does, from Arize, from Mojoworld. Alison can see his bone structure in the faces of the warriors around them, barracks full of endless blue eyes. That, at least, makes sense, Longshot looks like the people he comes from. There’s no way anybody from this world could look so much like anyone she’s ever known on hers except for by the oddities of chance, but then she sees a man with her late father’s sharp blue eyes, and doesn’t know what to think. 

Maybe it’s Baby. Maybe she’s trying to imagine what Baby’s gonna look like all grown up. That must be it.

 

 

 

This war feels endless. Hopeless, some days. But not always. Some days, Ali believes she’ll go home again, with Longshot and Baby, and that all of this will be nothing but a triumphant war story. Life goes on in wartime; she turned twenty-nine somewhere in the last year of fighting, she and Longshot found time for a wedding, are going to have a child together, soon. But even with this life she’s cobbled together, Ali can’t help but daydream of a world not at war. Of home, and whatever it had once held for her.

“It’s traditional, on Earth,” Alison explains, on one of those days where things beyond the rebellion feel like they still matter. Longshot stretches out in their bed with his ear against her belly, listening, and watching her with blinding focus. “To take your husband’s last name when you get married. Change your old last name to be his.”

Longshot looks like his heart is breaking. “But I don’t have a last name. I just have the one. I’m so sorry, Ali.” 

“Hey, don’t you worry, baby,” Alison promises. “I was thinking that maybe I could give you mine instead? If you wanted.” 

“Really? You’d do that, for me?” Longshot sits up. He reaches for both of her hands, and Alison reaches back, smiling at each other. 

“It’s no thing,” Ali laughs. “I promised to share my life with you when we got married. What’s a name compared to that? And this way we still match.” 

“Longshot Blaire,” Longshot says. “Doesn’t sound half bad, does it?” 

“Sounds like music to my ears.” 

“And our little guy, here.” Longshot lets go of one of her hands to press his palm to the pregnant swell of her belly. Alison had first felt the heartbeat a month ago, and Longshot had been fascinated ever since. “When it’s their time to shine, Baby can be a Blaire, too.” 

“Of course! We’re gonna be a family, Longshot. You, me, and Baby Blaire.” 

“How wonderful!” Longshot says, so happy, so earnest. “I think I’ve always wanted one!” 

Alison tugs him close so she can kiss the top of his head, laughing and feeling happiness well up from deep in her heart, warm and rising. So this is what it’ll be like, she thinks, to have a family. A real family. How wonderful it’s going to be.

 

* * *

 

vi. HEY, SPACE CADET (BEAST MONSTER THING IN SPACE), _Alison, on earth_

 

In London, she comes back from the dead for the first time, and wakes up in Betsy’s arms. 

She’d tried the comeback tour, and left it behind; she’s not the same Dazzler she once was. Pulling the white jumpsuit and roller skates on and smiling like she’s never seen war had been a lie. And the truth was, ever since Alison came home from Mojoworld alone, after two years of wartime and Longshot’s death, she can’t seem to fit in with the X-Men, but she can’t seem to survive without them. Alison moves to London, running away from the spotlights and California sun. She doesn’t want to be an X-Man or a superstar or a widowed Cadre warrior, she just wants to be Alison. She rents a cramped flat and sings in seedy clubs to make rent, and pretends she doesn’t still think about the people she used to know, that she isn’t lonely. She thinks she’s earned a quieter life. 

A woman in black stops Alison’s heart in her chest, and as she’s dying in the street, Excalibur finds her. Betsy finds her. She doesn’t remember dying, doesn’t remember Kitty’s hand reaching inside her rib cage to jumpstart her heart, but she wakes up four stories above Trafalgar Square, cradled tight in Betsy’s arms. 

“Bets--?” she murmurs. The effort nearly chokes her. 

“Don’t talk,” Betsy is frantic with worry, “we’re almost to a hospital, Ali, just stay with me, darling. You’re doing so well, you’re so brave.” 

She’s barely conscious, but listening to Betsy, who Ali’s never heard sound so afraid, she realizes she must still be dying. At least Betsy’s here. At least she won’t die alone.

Alison wakes up, alive. A doctor tells her she was dead for ninety-three minutes, that she should have died. Alison squares her shoulders and ignores it. No doing math out of miracles; she’s alive now, all that matters. 

 

 

 

Pete Wisdom asks her to join the new Excalibur, Alison says no. She’s not a hero anymore, she tells them all, just a singer. Within a week, she’s back. She’ll keep playing her seedy gigs because she loves the music more than she loved the career, but the pull of a team is too strong. She needs somewhere to belong. She’d grown too used to life in the trenches, so to speak. After living with the Cadre for as long as she did, Alison finds she’s nervous without comrades-in-arms at her back. She doesn’t want to spend any more months alone. 

They’re not quite strangers, but nobody knows enough about her to ask the wrong questions. She’s felt edgy and restless ever since she came back from Mojoworld alone, shaved her head and dyed the hair that was left pink, changed out the roller blades and the facepaint for cargo pants, for a hard light sword.  She’s aged more than makes sense for the length of time she remembers staying there, but remembers more than makes sense for the amount of earth time she was gone. She remembers years of wartime, but came back to earth only ten months after she left. After all of that, Excalibur isn’t exactly comfortable, but it’s convenient. Brian reminds her of Betsy, who visits when she can. Cain and Sage and Wisdom all look at her like they want her, and it reminds her of being a star. This can be enough for now. 

She books a show at a bar two steps above a dive, and things change. Her team comes to watch her sing, a man offers her a chance to record again, and Alison makes her choice. “I don’t do albums or auditoriums any more,” she told him, “this is enough for me.”

Alison knows how to be a superhero. But she forgot how hard it was. One day, she watches Betsy disappear, a bright white light winking out. She can only barely hear her own scream over Brian yelling for his sister, but Betsy isn’t anywhere she can hear either of them. This team isn’t a family like the X-Men were, barely comrades like the Cadre had been. Sage and Wisdom are brutal, even for Ali’s wartime sensibilities, the in-fighting never stops, and everyone thinks she’s some kind of fame junkie, playing superhero for one more hit of attention, to fuel her ego. Every day, she likes the way it feels to fight with her powers even more, and that scares her, a little.

She’s in London when she comes back from the dead for the second time, too, and then for the third, as well. Maybe that’s a sign that London isn’t working out for her. She’s gotten used to her own party trick, but it doesn’t prepare her for any other resurrections. In one night, Betsy, then Longshot walk back into her life, alive when she’d believed them each dead. Longshot looks at her like a stranger, but his easy smile reminds her of being in love, of happier times, of carving a life out of wartime. 

In the end, it isn’t even a choice at all.

 

 

 

She wakes up from a dream once, of her and Longshot and a beautiful baby boy. Their baby. He has her grandmother’s red hair and a smile just like Longshot’s, and there’s a black mark like a star over his left eye that reminds her of the stage makeup she used to wear. She wonders what they named him. 

She wakes up before she can ask. Perfect clarity, for a moment, and then Alison remembers she was dreaming, that’s she’s never even been pregnant, much less ever had a baby boy. In the dark of their bedroom, she feels her heart break. 

It’s just a dream, but after, nothing’s ever the same again.

 

 

 

She catches herself asking “remember when?” sometimes. 

She knows he can’t. 

Eventually, living with the memory of who Longshot used to be, of what they used to share, becomes like living with a corpse in the guest room. Walking back into their apartment feels like closing herself into a tomb. 

So she leaves. 

Longshot will understand, Alison promises herself, and wonders for five years if it was true.

 

* * *

 

vii. NOBODY’S DAUGHTER, _Alison and Katherine_

 

It will never be easy between them. It’s not Alison’s fault, even if it’s her resentment that’s part of what keeps them apart, now. She’s not the one who left. 

“Tell me about your life, sweetheart,” her mother tries, desperate, over brunch. She seems nearly frenzied with regret or guilt, or something in between. “I want to know all about it.” 

Alison isn’t quite sure, to be honest, how to even start. 

“I was married,” she says, “but I had to leave him.” She doesn’t want to give her mother any room to try and commiserate over running away, so she barrels on. “His memory was erased, he knew who I was, but he didn’t remember what we’d had together, anymore. It was too hard for both of us.” 

“Erased?” her mother blinks. In front of her, her mug of Earl Grey cools, forgotten. “Like, amnesia? Dementia? I don’t understand.” 

“It’s complicated,” Ali demurs. “You know how it is for us mutants.”

She doesn’t know--how could she?--but Alison doesn’t want to explain. She doesn’t want to give her mother that much of her. 

“I’m working on a new album,” she diverts. She’s not, but it’s an easy lie. And maybe she should, anyways. It’s like she’d told Lila, in those untethered, sleepwalking months between Australia and Mojoworld: she has a lot of heartbreak to work out. But now, after M-Day, there’s not many labels chomping at the bit to work with a former star best known for her mutation, and the only shows she’s played in months have been dives. It had been easier, in the end, to just go back to being a hero for a while. “Ballads.” 

“What happened to disco?” 

Alison shrugs. “Just don’t feel much like dancing, these days.” 

Her mother stirs Splenda into her tea, and nods like she understands, like she cares. 

Alison has always been a motherless girl, but never feels it more than when her mother pretends to try.

 

* * *

  

viii. JUPITER 4, _Alison and Betsy_

 

After Lois tried to kill her, Betsy was the only one who got it. Her brother Jamie had recreated her from nothing once, Betsy understood complicated families. Betsy understood Alison. 

Alison hasn’t let go of her cell phone since she called their mother to give her the news on Lois. Her knuckles clench so white, her hand feels locked around her phone like a claw. 

“I’ll help you try to save her,” Betsy promises. “You’re not in this alone.” 

“I just,” Alison shakes her head, helpless. “I don’t want to lose her. I can’t abandon her. Everyone else has.”

“I know,” Betsy murmurs, and hugs her close. She kisses her forehead and rubs a hand along Ali’s shoulder, until she tucks her face into Betsy’s neck and accepts the comfort. “We misfits must stick together, darling. Even among the X-Men.”

 

 

Longshot comes to visit, once. Wandering the island with his team, he explains, he just happened upon the right path to her door. He says he’s a detective now, working with that Madrox twerp, her old friend Guido, and a bunch of those former X-Force kids. 

“I’m an X-Man again,” Alison tells him. Longshot nods seriously, bright eyes fixed on her. She wonders if he remembers that once they were X-Men together, or if he’s lost the painstaking hours she’d spent reliving their life together for him. “And a pop star, again.” 

Still no new album, still carrying around heartbreak she can’t set to words, but she’s been playing shows again, all around the Bay. It feels like part of her is coming back to life again, everytime the stage lights come on.

“Wow, Ali!” Longshot beams. “That’s great!” 

She winks. “I do alright.” 

“You were always my favorite musician,” Longshot says. “Right before Styx. As far back as I can remember, before we even met for the second time.” 

“Okay, sweet talker,” Ali laughs, and kisses him. After that, it’s the way it always was with Longshot, simple and liquid and easy, like sunlight on water, like a song with the perfect beat. 

“Sext me sometime,” she says, and closes the door behind him.

 

 

“I’d heard you’d been touring lately, Alison, darling,” Betsy appears in her doorway like a ghost. “But no tickets laid away for an old friend?”

“I’m working on a new album,” Alison offers. “Maybe there’s a song for you on it.” 

It’s not technically a lie, anymore. California has been good for her, she’s actually writing again, playing new songs again. Maybe the other part could be true, too. 

“C’mon, Bets,” Alison takes Betsy by the hand and pulls. “I wanna get out of here tonight.”

 

In the garage, Alison climbs on the back of Betsy’s motorcycle, and waits for the taller woman to offer her the keys. “I know a place,” she teases, and sits pretty until she gets what she wants. 

“Is it a good place?”

“Good enough for you and me.” 

El Rio in the Mission District does karaoke on Wednesday nights. Alison’s nearly become a regular, over the twelve Wednesdays she’s lived on Utopia. No one’s called her out on it yet, but there are a few folks she thinks could guess who she really is. Anyone who pays enough attention to recognize Dazzler’s old voice singing new tunes is probably clever enough to realize there’s a reason she doesn’t sing disco here. 

Not that she’s singing much disco as Dazzler, either. She’s changed with the times and she’s sadder now, besides. She plays her old songs differently these days, and all the new songs and covers sound like a newer Alison Blaire. She’s seen more sorrow on this world and others than she’d believed could exist when she’d recorded her first song, and it’s changed her. How could it not? She keeps telling people she’s experimenting with genre on the upcoming album, but the truth is her music just doesn’t sound like it used to.

Betsy insists on covering Ali’s tab, sliding a black card with a name that looks far too long to be Braddock across the bar. 

“Heard Longshot came to call,” Betsy says when they find a table, out on the patio with a view of the karaoke stage. 

Alison shrugs. “I don’t want to talk about him.” Peering over the rim of her glass, she waits for Betsy to take a sip before she says, “Saw that Warren was buying our drinks.” 

Betsy stiffens, but even caught off guard, she doesn’t react any more than that. Alison feels petty and mean that she tried to catch her off balance on purpose, feels worse that it didn’t even work. “He’s richer than God. He won’t mind buying either of us another drink. And I don’t want to talk about him, either.” 

“Sure, no boys allowed,” Alison says. She puts a hand on Betsy’s knee, and waits to see what happens. “Girls’ night out.” 

Betsy curls her index finger and thumb around Alison’s wrist, and doesn’t move her hand until she leaves the table.

 

“I’m afraid I don’t do karaoke,” Betsy smiles later that night, “and even if I did, not when I’m breathing in this much pollen. Spring in the Bay doesn’t treat me kindly.” 

For good luck, Alison leans over Betsy to take a deep sip from Betsy’s drink, and then takes a drink of her own, too. “Guess I’ll have to perform for the both of us.” 

When Alison sings, she catches every eye in the room. But tonight, she’s just singing for Betsy. Refusing to break eye contact even once, she watches the color slowly rise higher and higher in Betsy’s cheeks. Ali licks across her bottom lip, and watches Betsy nearly squirm in her seat. 

“I’ve been waiting, waiting, waiting my whole life, for someone like you,” she sings, and Betsy’s eyes light up, like she’s finally heard everything Alison’s always wanted to say.

 

“Was that my song?” Betsy asks when Alison stops her bike at a red light on the ride home. “You said there was one. On your new album. Maybe.” 

Ali laughs. “It’s your song now, Bets. Only I didn’t write it. Wish I had.” 

The light changes, Alison revs the engine, Betsy clings a little tighter against her back. Betsy tucks her chin over Ali’s shoulder, and suddenly Alison wishes they hadn’t bothered with helmets, that they’d left their lives up to chance, so that she could turn her head just enough at the next red light and kiss Betsy like she’d been thinking of since Australia. 

They leave the bike and helmets in the garage when they get back to Utopia, and walk for the living quarters together. Even at night, San Francisco gives off so much light that out on the Bay, they can see more helicopters than stars. Alison can still hear the city, but she’s always heard more than anyone around her could. 

Betsy stops her as they pass through the farm, with a touch to the elbow. “I’d forgotten how good it feels to behave like normal women,” Betsy smiles. “It’s so easy to forget, here on our island, that we’re more than soldiers or refugees.” 

“Hey, how can we be heroes if we don’t know just what it is that the rest of the world is living for?” 

“Precisely.” The hand on Alison’s elbow moves, slips down her arm to touch the back of her hand, and then Betsy’s slipped in front of Alison, quiet as smoke in the dark, and is touching the side of her cheek. “Can I kiss you?” 

“Please.” Alison doesn’t wait, just puts a hand of her own at the back of Betsy’s neck and leans up to meet her halfway.

 

* * *

 

 

ix. CELEBRITY SKIN, _Alison and Captain Blaire_

 

Captain Blaire is the only survivor from her earth. Alison isn’t an idiot. She knows what that means. Still. It’s like looking in a mirror that looks back and talks shit about her posture. 

“You’re curious.” The other Alison doesn’t look up from the gun she’s cleaning, something big and nasty that looks foreign in her hands. Ali’s never shot a gun in her life. She’s never needed one. “Or is there another reason you’re breathing down my neck, Dazzler.” 

“I’m curious,” Ali admits. She can see herself in this other Alison, even beyond the surface level, but she has never been that hard, even after the failure, all the loss. She wonders how much she would have to lose to become this other Alison Blaire in front of her. “I’ve never met another me.” 

“We are not the same,” Captain Blaire corrects. “Don’t do either of us any favors.” 

“Your life,” Alison asks. “Before, I mean. It was like mine? Or.” She pauses. Thinks about what exactly she’s hoping to hear. “You lost someone? Someones?” 

What a cruel question to ask. But still. She needs to know if this Alison was alone in her world. If she’ll always be alone, too. 

“Everyone,” Blaire says. She is quiet but for the rasp of hands on steel for long enough that Ali almost speaks up again. “Her name was Emma, the Black Queen. She should have outlived us all.” A clatter and metallic snap as Blaire pieces the gun back together. “She didn’t.” 

Ali holds in the weird choking noise she wants to make; she’s not so clueless she’d laugh at someone else’s loss. Instead, she offers a truce. “His name was Longshot. He’s not dead, but he doesn’t remember he ever married me. My husband thinks I’m a stranger.”

Captain Blaire reloads her gun with a pop and a click. “There are plenty of ways to lose someone forever. I’m sorry.” 

“I’m sorry, too.”

 

 

 

Captain Blaire isn’t human anymore, she’s just light, she’s just energy, just the idea of something more. If there’s really such thing as a soul, maybe this is what it is. Where her body had been a moment before, there’s now a beam of light shaped like a woman, Captain Blaire, herself, turned entirely to light. 

Alison realizes, after a long moment of confused sorrow, that she’s watching herself die. Beside her, Colonel Summers steadies her, and Captain Blaire lights up like the big bang and disappears in the sunlight like mist. Not enough of her left to keep her shape, her energy releases back into the universe, a final transformation.

Energy is never destroyed, it’s only ever changed. Alison knows that as well as anyone, even if she shuffles the natural order of things when she converts sound to light. Captain Blaire has become a bright, warm light that’ll fade soon enough; she won’t ever exist again, but she’ll never be gone all the way, either.

One day, maybe, Alison will die like this, a blinding light. She hopes there will be someone there beside her to watch her go, too.

 

* * *

 

x. I’M OK, _Alison, alone_

 

Scott had told her that she wouldn’t have to be alone anymore. It was a nice idea. But even surrounded by X-Men, she only feels lost, as abandoned as she’d felt the few times she’d woken up in her Genoshan hospital bed, disoriented and alone. She’d felt so out of place with the X-Men when she came back to her earth. Never alone but always lonely. 

After what she’d done in the multiverse, after she’d made her peace with learning to kill, she felt too big for Cyclops’ rank and file, too feral for Wolverine’s legion of schoolteachers. She knows now what it’ll look like when she one day dies, and everyone has felt a little quieter and further away, because of that. Alison had wanted to be near Betsy after all of this, but Betsy is so hard to find nowadays, always on the run in her new black uniform. The few times Ali has seen her, Betsy felt so far away. They were both so buried in their own heads, in the blood on their hands, they could barely hear each other. So she’d joined SHIELD. So she’d sprung Mystique’s trap. So she’d ended up alone again.

All that time, and no one had noticed. 

She’s got that old itch in her hands that led her into the arena so long ago, but she’s faced those demons down and won before, and she’s not one to give a repeat encore. There’s someone new she wants to fight. She gives her official resignation to SHIELD and no one is surprised. Everyone must know what she wants to do next, but who's going to stop her?

She’s going to kill Mystique one day. Mystique stole her life, stole her body, stole the way she’d once felt safe. She’s earned this kill. But first, she’s going to destroy the blood empire Mystique built peddling drugs harvested from hers and other bodies. And she’s going to beat the shit out of anyone who tries to stop her.

 

* * *

 

xi. I THINK I’M PARANOID, _Alison and A-Force_

 

Nothing is easy with Carol. She’s one of the most difficult women Alison has ever known, definitely the most hard-headed person she’s ever had in her bed. And she’d thought Betsy was bossy. 

Carol clearly thinks this is like some sort of therapy. She fucks Ali stupid, and then every time, when she’s just trying to catch her breath and feel good, Carol starts in on the Dr. Phil school of pillow talk. 

“You’re taking unnecessary risks in the field, Blaire,” Carol says, reaching across her back to play with Alison’s hair. It’s not as short as it was before Nico’s makeover, but it’s short like it was when she joined the X-Men. “Want to talk about it?” 

“If I wanted a shrink, I’d see one,” Alison snaps. “Don’t psychoanalyze me, Danvers.” 

“I took a few psych courses back in the day,” Carol shrugs. She, at least, looks like she’s riding out the afterglow. “I can’t help it.” 

“No wonder you’re single.” 

Carol laughs. “Ouch."

“I don’t want to talk to you about what’s wrong with me. Okay?  Not anymore than you want to talk about your shit. Don’t make this messy.” 

“I thought you X-Men were all about talking about your feelings.” 

Ali snarls, caught off guard by her sudden anger. She climbs out of bed and starts gathering her clothes off of Carol’s floor. She’d let herself get caught up in how familiar Carol felt on this team of strangers, after all the time in Australia she’d spent with the sliver of Carol that Rogue carried with her. She’d let herself forget just how bad what had gone down with the Avengers had been, and now she feels like she’s been sleeping with the enemy. The fighting’s long over, but Ali thinks the bad blood’s gonna linger for a while, still. “Not to Avengers we don’t. I may be on this team, but don’t think that makes me one of you, _Captain_.”

 

Alison’s quit smoking six times, but somehow she always seems to have a pack on hand when she really needs one. Perils of show-business; she knows one day they’ll ruin her voice, but it’s an easy backstage habit to have when she’s on tour. Always a roadie with an light, right when you were itching for it. Carol follows her outside, in just a black sports bra and gym shorts. Even in her sleeping clothes she looks hard.

“Sorry,” Alison says. She flicks her lighter a few times, trying to get it to catch. “I’m just a bitch sometimes. Ask anyone.” 

“I’d ask if you wanted to talk about it,” Carol starts. 

“But I don’t.” 

Ali offers her pack but the taller woman waves her off, content to stand next to her and look out into the dark. 

“I can’t pretend to know what you’re going through,” Carol says. “But if you want, I know someone who does. Most of it, at least.”

 

 

 

Jessica Drew is noisy and messy and blunt, but she looks Alison in the eye and smiles. Alison had blasted her in such close quarters that the other woman had been partially blinded for most of an hour a few months ago when the Avengers had come for them. It's a tenuous life being a superhero; alliances shift so quickly, especially against mutants, that she is always finding the most unexpected of allies in her corner. “It’s been a few years,” she greets. Her voice is waspy and British, rough and warm, like good food in a bad pub. Nothing like Betsy, the gold standard she’s always held the rest of Britain against. “Carol caught me up to speed. I mean, she told me shit all, but said maybe you’d appreciate talking to me. And it doesn’t take a genius, does it? Why’s the mutant Queen of Disco want to talk to little old Spider-Woman, right? Tell me if I’m right.” 

“She said you were,” Alison pauses, “replaced.” 

Jess takes a thoughtful bite of her Sloppy Joe and nods. “Replaced,” she repeats. “Yeah. That’s a word for it.” 

Alison pushes her straw around in her milkshake. It had been Jessica’s request that they meet in the Staten Island Denny’s of all godforsaken places. The Denny’s is crowded, an absolute clamor of conversation and crying kids and the clatter of silverware against plates. Too noisy: if she isn’t careful she’s gonna get too powered up on ambient noise and start to glow. Under the table, she shoots sparks from one hand, dim under the Denny’s white fluorescents. 

“This place is awful,” Alison scowls. This was a bad idea. Years ago, in another life, she’d once hired Jessica to find her mother for her, back in in the Los Angeles days. Still. She barely knows this woman, even if she went through something just like Alison did. Hiring a private eye and spilling her guts are two really different levels of trust, and after the year she’s had, trust doesn’t sit easy. “Why are we here?”

 “Spy games,” Jess dismisses with a wave of her hand and a smiling wink. Like Alison’s in on her joke. “You want to know how I got over it. Right? You can ask, you know. I’m not gonna bite, Alison. Unless you want, I mean.” A beat, Jess looking over her sandwich with a blank stare, then she breaks with a loud snort. “I’m fucking with you.” 

“Okay,” Alison says. Something about bad jokes sets her at ease. All the years with Longshot maybe. “ _I’ll_ bite. How’d you get over it?” 

Jess laughs. “Not easily. Sorry. But I did. You will. I started getting over it when I started listening to my friends, to Carol, and stopped listening to the voice in my head that kept reminding me that the Skrulls picked someone they thought wouldn’t be missed. I let people help me. And after a while instead of waiting for people to reach to me, I was able to reach out, too.” 

“You make it sound easy,” Alison says. 

Jess puts the sandwich down. “I don’t mean to. It’s really goddamn hard to recover from being a hostage while somebody lived your life without anyone noticing, but you will. You’re not alone, even if you feel you are.”

“Us doppelganger girls gotta stick together,” a third woman slides into the vinyl booth across the table from Alison. “Great place you picked, Jess. Love the ambient dull roar. I can barely overhear myself.” 

“What’s going on here?” Alison scowls. Under the table, she stops the sparks to shape tiny knives out of hard light, so if this turns into a fight she’s not caught with her pants down. “You know each other?” 

“How big do you think the global intelligence community is, babe?” Domino laughs. “All us super spooks and mutant mercs cross paths sooner or later.” 

“Relax, Alison, it’s okay. After everything with the skrulls, Domino looked me up, wanting to help.” 

“When I got my life back,” Domino explains, “I didn’t know anyone who understood. I make a point of not letting other women go through it alone, too.” 

Jessica takes a huge bite of her sandwich and chews thoughtfully, nodding when Domino speaks. “You might feel alone right now, but you aren’t anymore. We are both notoriously difficult to get rid of.” 

Jessica excuses herself to the restroom after a few minutes of pointed gossip about Wolverine’s basic hygiene routine. The moment the bathroom door swings shut behind her, the smile slides off of Domino’s face, and she slides a jump drive shaped like a Minion across the table. 

“Jess is my friend,” Domino says, “but I don’t trust Avengers, and if you’re smart, neither will you. SHIELD isn’t going to be on your side on this, but I’m in your corner, Alison. Happy hunting.” 

“You’re…” Alison blinks a few times, stunned. She barely knows Domino, but they’d fought side by side on Utopia. Alison might not trust anyone these days, but if she did, she feels like she might trust Domino. “You’re helping me?”

“Obviously,” Domino rolls her eyes. “What’s life about if it’s not about getting even and getting paid? There’s a cell number on the drive. Text me sometime, yeah?” 

Alison tucks the drive into her pocket carefully, like a paper crane she can’t bear to dent. “Thank you.” 

“Hey, nothing gets me going like some well-earned revenge,” Domino laughs. “Just give me a ring if things get interesting? I think we could have some fun together.” 

Alison raises both eyebrows. “You think so?” 

“Sure. Text me some time, and I’ll show you so.” 

Alison winks and laughs, and gives her milkshake glass a spin. “You got yourself a deal.”

 

* * *

 

xiii. HEADS WILL ROLL, _Alison, Shatterstar, and Rictor_

 

Alison comes home one day and finds two men in her apartment. She recognizes them; she’s fought beside them but doesn’t know them well, familiar mostly because of their proximity to Longshot. 

“Dazzler,” Shatterstar says, both hands raised. Beside him, Rictor is silent. His eyes dart between them, and he looks tense. Anxious. “I was hoping we could talk to you.”

News travels fast among X-Men. Except for the big things, which everyone is always afraid to say. 

“We’ve heard about what you’re doing,” Shatterstar tells her first, “and we want to help. We have experience fighting organized crime. Do you?” Alison hadn’t told anyone but Jess and Domino what she was planning, but she can’t say she’s surprised word still got out. She’s been covering her tracks half-heartedly at best.

But that doesn’t explain what stake these two have in her private fights, experience or no. When she asks why they care, Shatterstar surprises her. “There’s no easy way to say this,” he sighs. On the couch, Rictor squeezes his thigh, and Shatterstar squares his jaw. “Dazzler-, Alison. I’m your son. From your marriage with Longshot, on Mojoworld. I’m sorry you couldn’t know before now.” 

Alison blinks. She turns to Rictor. “Okay,” she says. “And what about you?” 

He laughs. “I’m your son’s boyfriend. I’m here for him. No more big reveals.” 

With surprising clarity, Alison remembers waking up three years ago from a dream of a baby boy with red hair and a black star over one eye. This man with his red hair and black star over one eye, barely even a decade younger than her, is a stranger to her, but Alison believes him. Now that he’s told her, she feels like she knows him. 

“Holy shit,” Ali says. “Alright. I need you to explain how any of this is possible. Do you want to stay for dinner?”

 

 

 

“I feel like I should have known,” Alison confesses to Shatterstar. They’re up late, following a lead, while Rictor buzzes on comms in both of their ears. “Like, I should have looked at you and recognized you before you had to say anything.” 

Shatterstar shrugs. “Longshot didn’t, and he has telemetric abilities. I stole your memories of me, Alison. How would you have even known to look?” 

“I’m your mother,” Alison says. “I should have been there for you. I would have wanted to be there.” 

“Alison.” 

“I want to be part of your life going forward, if that’s okay. I grew up without my mother. I didn’t want that for my own son.” 

“That’s not your fault.” Shatterstar is quiet, serious. Her baby boy grew into a man, before she’d ever known of him. “It’s my fault, and I accept the blame for my actions. Or it’s Mojo’s fault, or Spiral’s fault, Arize’s fault. The time paradox’s fault. There are many to blame, and none of them are you, or Longshot. Or Julio.” 

Like he was summoned, Rictor suddenly speaks up in both of their ears. “Might want to hurry guys,” he buzzes through the comm links. “It looks like they’re getting ready to take the shipment and rabbit.” 

“Thank you, Julio,” Shatterstar says. “Are you eating the fortified soup I prepared you?” 

“I have a head cold, man, not the consumption.” 

Shatterstar scowls. “You need nourishment.” 

Alison smiles listening to them. They’re nothing like she and Longshot used to be, but she’s happy, seeing that Shatterstar hasn’t been alone.

“I’ll tell you what I need,” Rictor grumbles. “Oh, hey. Look alive: you’re right on top of the warehouse. Next block, on the left corner. All four of the drug runners Star tagged this morning are in the house, and from the trackers on them I'm reading twenty other heartbeats in the room.” 

“Only twenty-four?” Alison asks. Shatterstar laughs, teeth bared. “Give us a real challenge, Ric.”

“Jesus,” Ric groans. “So this is where he gets it from.”

“Wait,” Alison says when they stop at the door, touching a hand to Star’s elbow. “Earlier, what you said.” She reaches out for his hand, and squeezes it in both of hers. “It wasn’t your fault, either. No one could ever blame you for that, Shatterstar. I don’t blame you for anything." 

Shatterstar looks down at where she’s holding his hand. “Thank you.” 

Alison smiles up at him and hopes he believes her.

 

They slip in through a back door, creeping in like shadows behind stacked wooden crates. Alison drains the sound from the room, until from the shadows she can see people starting to panic as they yell and yell and yell, without being heard. “Close your eyes,” she mouths at Shatterstar, and she lights the room up supernova bright, blinding like a star being born, like a bomb being dropped. 

And then the screaming starts. It’s quiet at first, starting suddenly, like turning off mute half-way through a song. Shatterstar slides both swords free, and Alison shapes the sound of his swords scraping from their sheathes into a hard light sword of her own. 

“Dazzler just took out nine of the bastards,” Rictor tells them, whistling low and impressed, “so now it’s two on fifteen.” Alison makes some kind of noise of acknowledgement, adjusting her grip on her sword. She hasn’t fought like this in years, not since Excalibur, but it feels appropriate for the team-up. 

Shatterstar rolls his eyes. “That's hardly a fight.” 

“Whatever, man,” Rictor grumbles, fond. “Just have some fun with it.” 

Alison lights the room up like a flashbang again, turning her photon blast on the piles of shipping containers stacked around the room and searing them to ash. “Don’t worry, Ric,” she whoops, swinging for the first hired muscle she sees, “this is always fun.”

 

* * *

 

xiii. CROWDED STRANGER, _Alison and Katherine_

 

She can’t remember the last time she and her mother spoke, which says it all. When Lois had tried to kill her on Utopia, maybe, and she had called to say they were both alive. 

Still, this is important. She can sit with old wounds later. Katherine’s in New York still, as far as Alison knows, three hours ahead of California. It shouldn’t be too late to call. 

When her mother picks up the phone, Alison’s name is a question in her mouth. Alison only ever calls when things have turned very bad. “Is something wrong?” 

“Yeah, it’s me, Katherine. Mom,” Alison says. “Sorry it’s been a while. Nothing’s wrong. I did have M-Pox for a bit, but I’m totally cured now, so don’t worry about that. Just one of those things.” 

Her mother hasn’t always cared well for her, but she’s always cared about her. At the end of the day, that was never going to be enough, and they both know it. Ali knows she’s followed her careers, both as a pop star and a costumed hero, remembers the way she’d cried on the phone, when she’d finally called to say she was alive after crossing through the Siege Perilous. They are both trying, Katherine trying to make amends, Alison trying to forgive, and that’s all they can do now. 

“I think it’s good news, this time,” she says. “Congrats, mom. You’re a grandmother.” 

Katherine sounds choked up. “A baby?” 

“Not exactly,” Alison hedges. Over the phone, she explains as best she can, but the circumstances that took Star away from her and brought him back home are complicated even to the most seasoned X-Men. “His name is Shatterstar. He’s taller than any Blaire ought to be. But he has Grandma’s red hair.” 

“Can I meet him?” Katherine asks. “Have you both over for dinner, maybe? I’d like to get to know my grandson, as well as my daughter. If that’s okay with you.” 

Alison feels like she’s been waiting for this since she was little, in some very sad, very young corner of her. Her absent mother opening space in her life for Alison, making an effort to be present for her. She’s spent the years since they met as adults reminding herself that she doesn’t owe this woman any part of her, but that hurt feels old, now. It’s not a question of anything owed, but that if Katherine is willing to do the work too, Alison doesn’t want to give up on her this time.

After everything she’s been through this year, after how alone she’s felt, finally, she’s finding something that feels like family, in the last place she would have ever looked for it. 

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

 

* * *

 

xiv. THE CHAIN, _Alison and Shatterstar_

 

She doesn’t know how to be someone’s mother any more than Shatterstar knows how to be someone’s son. It’s okay that they’re bad at this. They’re brand new. They’ll have plenty of time to work on it between East Hollywood and Manhattan. 

“I could have teleported your entire car, you know,” Shatterstar says when they hit gridlock traffic on the 101. He fidgets with his sunglasses--a gift from Rictor, he’d told her as they’d loaded the car--and peers at his phone again. 

“You miss him?” Alison teases. She hopes it’s in a motherly way, but can barely tell what motherly is even supposed to look like. It’s not like she grew up with one, any more than Shatterstar did. And with Star already in his twenties, maybe it’s not a mother he needs anymore, so much as just somebody to depend on. She can be, Ali decides, whatever her son needs from her. 

Star shrugs, smiling just faintly. He’s so stoic, but Ali’s got good eyes, has to have a keen eye for sentiment in her line of work. She’s learning to read him. It’s not easy, but it feels worth the effort. 

When they finally leave the traffic behind, Shatterstar puts on Fleetwood Mac. Alison wishes she had a convertible, or a sunroof, at least, but otherwise it’s the perfect road trip; blue sky, Stevie Nicks, and the 10 heading east is the emptiest she’s ever seen it. The son she’s welcoming into her life sitting shotgun, their windows both rolled down. 

“In thirty-five miles,” Shatterstar navigates, “you’ll merge onto I-15, towards Las Vegas.” 

Everything has always felt easier on the open road.

 

 

 

“Why did you stop making music?”

They’re passing through the Rocky Mountains, now. The road snakes around, weaving in between peaks; it’s both hands on the wheel kind of driving. Alison doesn’t answer for a minute, changing lanes, eyes on the blue sky in her rear-view mirror. “I never really stopped. I just started doing more.”

She can feel Shatterstar’s eyes on her, but he’s patient. The road starts to climb, still curving left, so Alison focuses on that for a moment. She doesn’t feel like she’s ever stopped making music, but she knows her discography is spotty, over the years. She’d spent a few months touring with Lightbringr, thinking that getting on stage and speaking out against mutantphobia was the most heroic thing she could do, but the climate changes so fast, and by the end, they could barely fill a small room. And so now she’s picking up and following the X-Men back east, a few years late, to settle back in New York and try to redefine herself again. She can’t make people listen, but she can help in other ways. 

“In another world,” Alison tells him, “I could have just been a pop star. But here, in this life, that wasn’t enough. Who asks to be a superhero, right? We all get sucked in, no matter how many times we try and get out. Sometimes, I feel like I’ve spent my entire life trying to rebuild my career in between all the crises, and never got a chance to actually have a career.”

“Do you miss it?” 

“All the time,” Alison laughs. “How could I not? But it’s not like I ever stopped making music, I just stopped playing it for the world.” 

Shatterstar nods slowly, politely, like he doesn’t quite understand, but thinks he’s close to figuring it out. 

“Have you ever sang karaoke?”

He wrinkles his nose. “Once. Madrox threw up on my boots, and Rahne sang Ave Maria quite out of key. I’ve never once felt the need to go back.”

Alison throws back her head and laughs, still smiling when they clear the Rockies, and the prairie spills out before them.

 

She talks him down easy, but doesn’t think he was putting up that much of a protest when she suggested he try karaoke her way. They stop for the night in Nebraska, in a town big enough to have a bar that does karaoke on weekend nights, but not so big it’s got a second option. Shatterstar had offered to drive through the nights, he didn’t need sleep the way she did, but Alison wanted to take the time to roadtrip right. They’re still making good time travelling by day, Los Angeles to Western Nebraska in just two days.

It looks like karaoke is the only game in town. The bar is crowded when they walk in, and Ali makes a beeline for the karaoke sign up sheet, while Star looms over the crowd at the bar. She signs them up to share the stage. 

“I’m not making you sing alone,” Alison says when she sits down at the table he’d found. 

His shoulders relax. “I’m not much of a performer, these days. And even less of a singer.”

“No, I can’t imagine anyone would want to be, after all you’ve gone through.” 

Shatterstar still fights like every eye in the room was born to watch him, but he seems wary in any other spotlight. All she’d ever wanted was to be a star, but no one had ever given her son the choice. 

“You choose,” he tells her, when Alison asks what he wants to sing. She reads the room, tries to get a bead on what will play well here. The crowd is heavy with ten-gallon hats, deep into country-western territory, but Shatterstar doesn't strike her as a country music fan. So she averages out, something she likes with enough heart to keep the bar warm. 

“You do this often,” Shatterstar says, rather than asks. 

“I’m a performer at heart. Can’t be helped.” 

Star nods. “I understand,” he smiles at her. Alison beams back. “You have to honor every part of yourself.” 

“Gotta make sure there’s something left of you, for when the fighting’s done.” 

“No one is only a warrior.” 

“No, sweetheart,” Alison pats the back of his hand. “Nobody is just one thing, not even you or me. We’re allowed to be as complicated as we need to be.”

Her name is next, so with a patient smile, Alison herds Star on stage in front of her. “You played it in the car yesterday,” she explains when the music starts, Fleetwood Mac again. Shatterstar cocks his head to peer at her. “It’s been stuck in my head since.” 

He smiles, sadly. “My friend Theresa shared this song with me.” Alison doesn’t know a Theresa, but she knows what life is like for X-Men, and she can guess why thinking of her might make Star sad. None of them lived lives without loss. 

“I hope it’s okay,” Alison says, “if you share it with me now, too.” 

“Yes, I think she would be very glad, if she knew. Family was important to her.”

Star’s no musician, but he has a nice voice, low and warm. Something else he must have inherited from her. She’s listening to her son sing, Alison realizes, she’s sharing a stage with her very own child; singing with him, like Katherine never sang with her. She has lived an impossible, heartbreaking life, but if this is where it’s led her, it’s hard to complain.

 

 

 

“I’ve got a last name, if you want it,” Ali says, as they’re reaching the end of Nebraska. They’ve got the windows down even though Star’s driving ninety miles an hour down a highway flat as the path of a tornado, so she can better see the cornflower blue of the open sky. Alison’s turning the roar of air past their windows into fireworks flaring up over the freeway, so she can hear the stereo and listen to her son. 

Star smiles over at her, nearly shy, before turning back to the road. “There’s a name I’ve had my eye on, actually.” 

“Oh,” Ali says, because she wasn’t expecting a no, and then she stops and actually hears what Star is saying. “ _Oh_.” 

Star shrugs. Redhead complexion gives him up, and she watches the pink spread on his cheeks. 

“In the meantime, if you want mine before your boy gives you his, I’d be proud to call you my son where everyone can see. Shatterstar Blaire doesn’t sound half-bad.” 

She gets a real grin this time. “Not bad at all.”

 

 

 

In Iowa, Ali extracts a promise that Shatterstar will come to dinner with her mother, provided Rictor is invited as well. And in Illinois he suggests that he and Rictor could spend Christmas with her, before she can even ask. They spend a night in Chicago, and Alison asks a tourist to take a picture of them in front of the Bean; their very first family photo. They get awful diner food right off I-80 in Gary, Indiana, and Alison laughs so hard she nearly chokes on her milkshake as he tells her about what learning about earth from X-Force had been like. In northern Ohio, Rictor calls, and Shatterstar puts him on speaker phone so they can both commiserate with him as he gripes about Illyana’s leadership style. Alison suggests as they enter New Jersey, that if Shatterstar ever wants, he’s welcome to call her mom, as well as Alison. 

By the time they reach New York City, Alison finally feels like someone’s mother. When she pulls up outside of his building, Rictor already waiting for him on the front stoop, she kisses Shatterstar on the forehead. “Thank you for taking the time to let me get to know you.” 

Shatterstar smiles, eyes crinkling and nose scrunching just a little. Maybe he’s just glad to be home, but he seems happy to have been here with her. “I’m glad I did, Alison. Mother.” 

It’s awkward, but seems earnest. Maybe they’ll grow into it, maybe she’ll always be Alison to her son. Who cares what he calls her, so long as she never has to lose him again? 

She finishes the last leg of the drive, from Brooklyn to the Jean Grey School in Central Park, alone, playing Fleetwood Mac again and singing along, feeling like everything good about spring in New York is hers to own, like there’s something that’s been buried inside of her for a very long time that’s just now blooming.

 

* * *

 

xv. HAPPY TO SEE ME, _Alison and the X-Men_

 

She thought it would feel like coming home. But she knew them in a different life, in the life she lived on the other side of the Siege Perilous. On Utopia, which feels like it was a fever dream of a third life. Whatever the X-Men used to mean to her, it’s different now. This team is barely X-Men, anyways; they're just the dregs. 

Alex turns himself in, so the rest of them can run. Alex, Piotr, Hank; none of them are the people she’d once known, but neither is she. The X-Men will always be a family to her, but this team doesn’t feel familiar to her-it’s men she used to know. They were thrown together out of desperation, nothing more. She’s shuffled through so many teams the past few years, but after so many false starts, she’s figured out where her heart is, and it’s back with the X-Men, her X-Men, with Betsy and Ororo and Longshot. 

“You can drop me off wherever,” Alison says. “I’ve got someone coming to pick me up.”

The boys are skeptical, but Ali has no interest in going into hiding again. She has a career to rebuild. She has a family to be near. All it takes is a call from the Blackbird’s satellite phone, and like a flashbang, the night is illuminated by a portal shaped like an X. Shatterstar, Rictor, and Boom Boom tumble through. 

“Where the hell is this, Alison?” Rictor jokes, looking around the empty taiga around them. Next to them, Boom Boom grumbles something unpleasant about being back in the snow. 

“Eastern Mongolia,” Alison grins. She reaches out, and when Shatterstar nods, she pulls him into a hug. “Hello, Shatterstar.” 

He smiles. “Hello, Mother.”

“ _Mother_?” Boom Boom screams. James’ head pops out of the jet’s open doorway, brown eyes wide in his face, and smiling wide, like Alison hasn’t once seen him smile with their team.

“What the hell are you guys doing here?” he grins, skipping the steps to jump straight to the ground, bounding across the field towards them. “Damn, but it’s good to see you.” 

“Proudstar,” Rictor whoops, “It’s been a minute. What the hell did you get into?” 

“Hey, Ric, Tabby,” and they exchange some sort of gruff handclasp-hug, that falls to pieces as Tabitha throws herself on top of the two of them to yank them down into a group hug. Thrown in with the rest of them, she’d forgotten that Jimmy and her son were old friends. She forgets how young they all are sometimes, how young they must have been when they all started this. “We went rogue and now the feds are after us, again.” 

“Oh, shit, no way?” Tabitha laughs. “Us too.” She sobers up immediately. “They got the rest of our team.” 

“Just like the old days,” Rictor rolls his eyes. 

“Anyways,” Tabitha says. “Let’s get back to what’s important here. _Mother_?” 

“Oh. Yeah,” Rictor laughs. “About that.” 

Alison tunes them out, focusing on Star. “Thank you for coming for me,” she tells him when she lets him go. She reaches up to cup his cheek and smile at him. Her son. She’s known for a while now, but sometimes she’s still caught by surprise when she remembers how big her life has grown. 

Star frowns down at her. “Of course I came. I’m your son. Any time you need me.” 

Alison feels like she could maybe cry. “Oh, sweetheart. You don’t need to take care of me. That’s my job.” 

“I don’t mind,” Star smiles. “Family takes care of each other, right?” 

Her beautiful baby boy, all grown up. She doesn’t think she could have raised him to be any wiser, any braver. She’s so proud of who he became, even without a family to show him how to grow. 

“I”m so proud to be your mother, Shatterstar,” Alison says, and the surprised, overwhelmed smile on his face makes her cry.

 

* * *

 

xvi. WE WERE ROCK AND ROLL, _Alison, in the Age of X-Man_

 

There’s something missing. She has all this love bursting forth inside of her, and nothing to do with it, nothing to show for it. She’s gotta get it out. 

A man whose followers call him Murshid says there’s a better way, promises the love she feels is good and right. So Alison leaves everything behind to follow him. 

 

 

“Is it so wrong,” Apocalypse asks, “for a parent to love their child?” Beside him, Genesis beams up at him, tableau of a happy family, in a world where happiness comes only at the expense of family. Looking at them, Alison feels hollow, her heart rattling, detached, in an empty set of ribs. Maybe, she thinks, she could have had a family once, but not in this life. 

Here, she has her music, her spoken word, and her belief in something better. If she ever had something more, she can’t remember. Something about the not remembering hurts as much as the loss. 

 

 

Alison remembers.

Shatterstar. Betsy. Longshot. Lois. Her friends, her mother, her X-Men. She’s felt so lonely for so long, but she’s never been as lonely as she was in this fake life, and now that she can remember the life she’d lived before, she feels full with it, content. There are so many people that she loves. She’s never going to have to be alone again.

 

* * *

 

xvii. UNLIMITED CAPACITY FOR LOVE

 

Rictor had warned her that it might take all day, but Alison hadn’t minded. She wants to spend the time it takes to know him better, this man who loves her son. Rictor’s not all that outgoing, but he’d reached out to ask if she’d help him shop for his anniversary with Shatterstar, and Alison can recognize that he’s trying. He knows Shatterstar far better than Alison does, it’s unlikely there’s any help she can actually give him. 

They’re at their eighth antique store of the afternoon, and Rictor is studying a display case of antique army swords. “Star’s been making noise about interior design, lately,” he’d explained over lunch, “We have all this wall space we’re not using, yknow? I want to give him something that he can put on the wall, something that reminds him we really do live there.” 

Ric looks at his phone, and then back at the case of swords. “Hell, yeah,” he grins. “Found it.” 

Every antique sword in the case looks identical to every antique sword at the last seven places they looked, but Alison’s not about to say that. She’s not the sword expert in the family. 

It takes a few minutes for Ric to actually pay for the sword and get the owner to agree to hold it overnight, so he can bring it home when Star’s not around to see. Alison looks through costume jewelry and waits for him to finish. The earrings remind her of what she used to wear on stage, but it’s been a lifetime since she thought chandelier earrings were truly her look. She’s developed some subtlety in her old age. 

Outside, the setting sun is blinding after spending so long in such a dimly lit store. Even with her genetic de-sensitivity to light, it takes a moment for her eyes to adjust. Alison closes her eyes and listens, following her ears down the sidewalk beside Rictor. 

“Star and I make pizza Friday nights,” Rictor says as they walk towards the subway, “if you wanna swing by for dinner.” 

“Of course,” Alison grins. “Thank you.” 

“You’re Star’s family,” Ric says. “You’re always welcome at our table.” 

“Ric,” Ali says. “It’s your family, too. If you want it. You’re the love of my only son’s life. Of course you’re family.” 

“Julio,” Ric says. He scuffs his foot against the ground with a low scrape, Ali can hear the loose change in his pocket jingle as he clears his throat. “You can call me Julio, if you want.” 

“Julio, I’m going to hug you now,” Alison tells him. And on the middle of 8th Ave. she pulls the man she’s already started thinking of as her son-in-law into a tight hug and lets the crowd part around them.

 

 

 

Alison can hear music through the apartment door as Julio fumbles with his keys. “Gimme a sec,” he grunts, wiggling the key in the lock. 

He gets the door open, and holds it for her. Inside, Shatterstar is wiping off the kitchen counter in socked feet, bobbing his head in time with the radio. When he sees them both at the door, his smile glows. 

“Just in time,” Shatterstar says. “Happy birthday, Mother.” 

“Happy--?” Alison begins to ask, but is cut off before she can. 

“Surprise!” around the room, heads pop up from behind the furniture and around corners. A few people tumble through portals. 

“Happy early birthday, Alison,” Julio grins when it becomes obvious Alison doesn’t know what to say. “It was Star’s idea, but it was a team effort.” 

Alison pulls Julio into another hug. She can feel her eyes growing hot and damp, but it’s okay if she cries. She’s in a room full of people who love her. Star weasels in between them to get an arm around Alison and Julio both, turning it into a group hug. Julio tries to squirm out of the hug to give them space, but they both hold tight and don’t let him go. 

“Are you happy?” Shatterstar asks. His eyes are shining, but he’s biting at his lip. He doesn’t look away as he waits for her answer. 

“I’m so happy,” Alison promises, squeezing him tighter.

 

Shatterstar and Julio have packed a crowd into their apartment, and everyone is here for her. She’s a star and a hero and part of something bigger here, part of something like a family. Next Tuesday, she’ll have spent thirty-five years wanting to feel loved, but today she doesn’t feel like she has to worry about that any more. 

Alison slips around the room, star of the show, giving everyone their turn with the birthday girl. Lila is controlling the speakers so the music is good enough to dance well to, and once they move the coffee table out of the way, Ali spins around the room with Hank, with Betsy, Ororo, Warren, one after the other, until she’s seeing stars. 

Longshot finds her, after. He hands her a glass of water, and then a tape cassette. “Dehydration’s no joke, Ali,” he says, eyes twinkling, tapping his index finger against the back of her hand until she takes a drink. “And the mixtape is for you. Happy birthday.” 

“C’mere.” She hugs Longshot tight and presses a kiss to his temple. He feels so familiar against her, like a favorite memory. She has so much love for him still, but it’s slipped its old skin, become something different. “Thank you for everything, Longshot. I’m glad you’re a part of my life.” 

“You’re the brightest star in the sky, Ali,” Longshot smiles. He kisses the back of her hand, and lets her go. “I hope you’re always around.” 

This is the last time they’ll end things between them, she knows. It’s been years since they’ve really been together, anyways, but they’ve let this linger for so long. They need to be new people, these days. “Of course, sweetheart. We’re still family, you know? We’ve got a kid together. It’s not our time anymore, but I’m not going anywhere.” 

Longshot wanders off after a few minutes when he hits the bottom of his bottle. “That looked heavy for a birthday party,” Domino sneaks up from nowhere Alison can figure out. She leans against the wall beside Alison, picking up pieces of Chex Mix out of the palm of her hand and eating them, one by one by one. 

“Actually,” Alison says. “It feels good to clear the air.” 

“Mm,” Domino nods. She picks up a pretzel rod, and bites into it with a snap. “You never texted.” 

“It didn't end up getting that interesting. Star and Julio helped. We took out her whole ring, but couldn't get Mystique. The X-Men wanted to handle that their way.” 

“Should’ve texted anyway. Believe it or not, my services as a hired gun weren’t the only thing on the table.” 

“Maybe you should’ve been clearer.” 

“Okay,” Domino agrees. She tosses the remnants of her handful of Chex Mix into the trash, and wipes her hands on a napkin. “Want to dance, Alison?” 

Alison does.

 

She looks up, at one point in the night, as the lights all go down and the stereo shuts off with a click. There’s a bright light in the kitchen, and Betsy and Ororo carry out a cake, all lit up with a sprinkling of candles shaped like tiny stars. Someone starts singing Happy Birthday, and Alison thinks, _don’t ever forget this._ She wants to carry with her always the way she feels right now. 

“Make a wish,” Ororo smiles. Alison has amazing lung capacity, but thirty-five candles on a cake this big calls for something closer to a gale force wind. The last seven candles extinguish in a breeze so slight Ali almost believed she got them herself, before Ororo winked.

“We made it ourselves,” Betsy kisses her cheek, squeezes her tight. “Happy birthday, my dear.” 

People queue for cake and spread back out, the music comes back on. In the corner, Logan and Alex are losing a game of beer pong to Rogue and a blindfolded Gambit, her mother talks low and serious over cake with Jean on the couch, Ororo and Hank two-step around the living room while Betsy laughs with her twin, patiently waiting for her turn on Ororo’s arm. Longshot and Jess lay flat on their bellies to arm-wrestle in the hallway, and in the kitchen, Shatterstar throws Julio over his shoulder, both of them laughing, surrounded by their friends. 

Finally, finally, finally, Alison can see what’s been in front of her for the longest time, what she’s spent her life building and rebuilding. She’s had a family all along, after everything, after all. Maybe it’s not the one she’d wanted so badly when she was young, but it’s hers. All that love she’s had in her heart, this is where it came from, this is where it goes, this is what it gave her. A full life, days spent in the company of people who care for her, the people she trusts and knows and loves. 

Nobody’s going to let her disappear ever again.

**Author's Note:**

> Alison's an interesting character to me because she's been redefined so many times over the years, but has only had about 400 appearances, causing many of those changes to feel very abrupt in canon. Nearly every book Alison appears in does a complete 180 on the state of her career, because continuity is a joke and it's laughing at me. This was my attempt at trying to find a through-line in her story in the form of her love of music and her recurring anxieties around being alone, and slipping in between the ins and outs of actual canon to build a longer arc. 
> 
> Thank you to my incomparable friends on discord who have listened to me talk about Alison non-stop for two months now, particularly Jay and Soren, the writing brain trust, without whose encouragement, feedback, and help with disco music, I'd have abandoned this halfway though.
> 
> Any/all thoughts, responses, or feedback are always greatly appreciated. Feel free to reach out on tumblr for further thoughts and discussion on Dazzler and the X-Men, at @robertodacosta.
> 
> Each segment deals with a particular moment in canon for Alison, though I played fast and loose with a few, with the exception of xiv, which is because I like road trips and wanted to think about what Ali an Star's dynamic would look like if she ever actually knew she was his mother, and xvii, because I'd caught up to canon, and wanted to end on my own terms. Here are some specific canon notes, organized by segment:
> 
> ii. I've not read all of Dazzler (1981), so I largely glossed over nearly everything that happens in that book, with the exception of the development of Alison's relationships with her father, mother, and half-sister, as those were part of the story about Alison and family, found or otherwise, I wanted to tell here. As a side note, anything positive I wrote about Los Angeles here does not reflect my own opinion. Cannot stand the place, but I do live there, so at least you know the descriptions of scenery check out.
> 
> vii. Alison's dialogue is from New Excalibur #8, the issue where she turns down an offer to record again, despite 7 issues earlier insisting she had quit superheroics forever to focus on her career. (Despite having walked away from her revival tour in Deadpool (1997) #67 for no explained reason, to move to London and play in dive bars.)
> 
> x. There is a panel in X-Treme X-Men when Captain Blaire is introduced that implies Longshot was in her life and became a skeletal zombie, but there's only one Longshot in all of existence as explicitly stated in Exiles, so I creatively reinterpreted a blonde skeleton wearing black as Emma Frost and called it a day.
> 
> xii. When talking to Alison about their shared experiences after Alison's kidnapping and replacement by Mystique, Jess is referencing her kidnapping and replacement by the Skrull queen Veranke for some time leading up to Secret Invasion (2008), and Domino her time as a captive of arms dealer Tolliver, while Copycat replaced her for a year at the beginning of X-Force (1991).


End file.
